Vaughn Sigley: Persistence Pays Off
After a crippling virus which tore through Vaughn Sigley’s stable in 2018 led to a lengthy drought of winners, the Serpentine trainer is now firmly back on track.
As any long-standing participant within the racing industry would know, overcoming such a setback requires an incredible amount of patience, loyalty and resilience¬—all of which have not only been instrumental factors in Sigley’s return to winning form, but also in the resurgence of his stable star, Missile Launch.
The mammoth-sized six-year-old emerged as a potential star of WA racing when bursting onto the scene to win six of his first nine race starts in impressive fashion, however, persistent respiratory issues then led to his exclusion from the winner’s stall for almost 18 months.
Sigley has since reinvigorated the Smart Missile gelding to win two of his past three starts, including last Saturday’s $100,000 Listed Tattersalls Cup at Ascot, cementing his claim as a contender for next month’s $400,000 Group 2 Perth Cup.
Sigley, 52, is a jockey-turned-trainer and son of former jockey, Keith, and says he was always destined to follow his father into the industry.
“I was born in Geraldton, but I grew up most of my life in Exmouth,” he said.
“My old man was riding up north, so that’s why we moved up there.
“My mother made me do year 10, she didn’t want me to be a jockey, but we were always going to the races.”
After finishing his schooling, Sigley moved to Perth to embark on a jockey apprenticeship under the tutelage of trainer Lindsay Rudland, who was once an outstanding jockey himself.
Rudland, who sadly passed away last month, was the father to jockeys Noel and David, as well as the stepfather to champion hoop Damien Oliver and his late jockey brother, Jason, after marrying their mother, Pat.
“They took me in and were like my family when I was there,” Sigley said.
“Jason and Damien were always there growing up and they were great to me.
“Lindsay and Pat taught me a lot.”
Sigley went on to become the leading apprentice of his crop and rode a swag of feature race winners throughout his career, whilst also having the honour of winning on champion sprinter Placid Ark in what would later become the galloper’s final race.
The Hall of Fame gelding won 14 of his 21 race starts, including Australia’s 1987 Triple Crown (Group 1 Lightning Stakes-Oakleigh Plate-Newmarket Handicap treble), and Sigley was aboard the WA great when winning the Group 3 Bobbie Lewis Stakes at Flemington in 1988.
At only 21 years-of-age at the time, Sigley says it is without doubt the highlight of his riding career.
“I was doing a bit of riding for (trainer) Wally Mitchell at the time,” he said.
“He was looking for someone to go over east with Darren, his son, and look after the horse while he was still over here.
“To get to ride a horse like that, he was Australia’s Triple Crown winner, you’d be going pretty well to go past him.”
In tragic circumstances later that year, Placid Ark had to be euthanized after breaking a sesamoid during a barrier trial.
Sigley took six months off after his eastern states venture and then rode a season in the gold-mining town of Kalgoorlie before returning home to Perth.
He had planned to continue his jockey pursuits, however, an untimely accident soon spelled the end of his career in the saddle.
“I galloped into a tree and got busted up pretty bad,” Sigley said.
“I was out for about a year and it wasn’t any good for my weight and that.
“It put a bit of a stop on it, but I ended up getting back as a jock and was a bit heavier.
“I rode for a while, but weight got the better of me a bit.
“I think I stopped riding around 1992.”
After his jockey career came to an end, Sigley took some time off to think about what the next chapter in his life would be.
An unexpected call from a friend in Melbourne led to an opportunity to work on the east coast, which he felt could provide him with a strong grounding ahead of his own future training endeavours.
“He asked me what I was doing,” Sigley said.
“I said, ‘nothing, I’m just sitting on the beach fishing and eating crayfish, basically’.
“He asked if I wanted to go over there to ride work, so I did and, when he seen me, I looked like a little beach whale.
“I got the weight off pretty quick, though, and I rode work for a while.”
Sigley stayed in Melbourne for five years working for well-credentialed horsemen, including highly-regarded juvenile trainer, Roger James, and elite preparer of stayers, Michael Moroney.
He then returned to Perth to take out his own training licence and it wasn’t long before he made an impact.
“I started my training in 2005 and my first starter was a winner, a horse called Swing On,” Sigley said.
“We were in Hazelmere originally and I went from there to Lark Hill and trained from there for quite a while.
“Now I’ve been out at Serpentine for nearly two years, at a 130-acre property.
“We’ve got everything there—broodmares, foals, spellers—and we’ve got an 1800-metre track.”
Despite a lean past couple of years, Sigley had achieved enormous success earlier this decade and possessed one of the state’s best winning strike rates.
Best known for training now six-time Group 1-winning superstar Black Heart Bart until he was transferred to Melbourne as a five-year-old, Sigley prepared the Blackfriars gelding to 10 victories in WA, including two Group 3 wins and seven at Listed level.
During the same time period, Sigley’s home-bred galloper, He Or She, was making an impression of his own when winning seven of his first nine race starts before also being moved to Victoria after Sigley and his co-owner sold a 50 per cent share in the Kendal Star gelding.
With multiple stakes-winning gallopers such as Rohan ($541,900 earner) and Dawn Approach ($530,405) also in his care, as well as sprinting mare, She’s A Virtue, who won six consecutive races in a single preparation at the time, Sigley was on top of the world.
“We had a real good run during that time,” he said.
“People just dream about having that many good horses at once.
“Unless you’re training for Bob Peters, it’s not within the realms, I suppose.
“We were lucky.”
Having spent almost all of his life in racing, however, Sigley knows that you need to be able to ride out the lows to enjoy the highs in the great game.
Over the past 12 months, he has had to do exactly that.
“About a year ago we had a virus come through,” he said.
“It was just at the wrong time as we’d had a long break with our horses running anyway and we just about had them cherry ripe, and they got it then.
“We basically just had to stop with a lot of them and put them out.
“It was a real long break in-between for us and it was hard.
“A few owners disappeared, but we’re back on track now and the horses are all fit and well so that’s not posing a problem with us.
“I know how hard the game is and I’ve seen a lot of people who are really good horsemen and can ride or train, but it doesn’t necessarily mean much unless you have the stock.”
Fast forward to last Saturday and Missile Launch continued his return to form when taking out the Listed Tattersalls Cup (2100m) at only his third attempt at a staying journey in a 24-start career.
The moment was made all the more satisfying for Sigley and connections when considering the adversity that both the stable and horse had overcome over the previous 12 months.
“He had his own issues which were very hard to get through and come back from,” Sigley said.
“Some people were telling me to drop him back to 1400 and that he wasn’t running it out, but I thought, ‘if I drop him back to 1400, he’s not going to win anyway’.
“I stuck to my guns and kept pressing forward and got him over ground.
“It looks like it’s what he wanted, anyway.”
With long-distance victories at two of his past three starts, Sigley is now targeting Missile Launch at the time-honoured Group 2 Perth Cup on January 4.
Despite trialling in June and having raced in each of the five months since, he feels the Smart Missile gelding is going better than ever.
“We know that, at this stage, there’s nothing affecting him,” he said.
“We know we’ve got him fit and well and sometimes you can put a horse out in the paddock and those problems arise again.
“We’ll definitely be going towards the Perth Cup at this stage.
“We’ll go the Towton Cup and after that it’ll be three weeks to the Cup, so I may butter him up into the Ted Van Heemst Stakes.
“We’ll just wait and see.”
After finishing third in the 2011 Perth Cup with Simply Adorable, Sigley is hell-bent on tasting winning success in the prestigious event.
Anyone associated with WA racing dreams of winning a Perth Cup, however, for Sigley the sentimental value attached to the famous race runs even deeper.
“I would really love to win the Perth Cup,” he said.
“It’s a race that means something to me.
“Being apprenticed to Lindsay, he won a Perth Cup and both of his sons that rode, David and Noel, both won one.
“Damien Oliver and his father won one, too, so I’ve always said that there’s unfinished business there for me and I want to win one.
“Jason never won one, either, so I want to try to win one for me and Jase.
“Whether it’s this year or not, I’ll keep trying.”
MICHAEL HEATON